I have little to no time right now, but hopefully later today I will have more. I am completely fine and have been having the time of my life. I am now in Cape Town. My last week in Durban was great; I was on my pediatric rotation at King Edwards Hospital. During that rotation I found myself getting really angry fairly frequently. When it comes to children who are young enough where their parents have full control over them, I get furious when parents make what I feel is the wrong decision. This three month year old has liver failure and will die sometime within the next 3-6 weeks. Her mother refused Anti-retroviral treatment while she was pregnant, so when her child was born, she was HIV positive. That woman’s choice to not take ARVs will kill her child. How is that right? With my studies into ethics I do try and look at every angle, but I keep coming to the same conclusion that a pregnant woman should not be able to endanger the life of her child if she is choosing to have the child. However, I do classify myself as pro-choice. The case of this girl has stuck with me the past few weeks. During the orientation tour in Cape Town (two weeks later), one of our guides alluded to the infamous herbs which some locals believe cure HIV; he was one of those people who believed these herbs to be a cure even though he has had access to high levels of education. I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I cannot understand how educated persons can further the rumor of an herb which cures HIV when their are hundreds of children dying in hospitals because of HIV complications.

During the peds rotation, I also got to know two amazing little boys, Tyrique and Liam. Both were admitted with respitory issues, but we saw them several days in a row and they both recovered very quickly. Larissa and I let them play with Iphones and they tons of pictures and videos; Liam was also an incredible artist! After the final week in Durban wrapped up, Jen and I had to figure out what to do with our week off. We were incredibly lazy and didn’t even make any plans until that Saturday…However, we ended up having a nice week at the beaches south of durban, unfortunately the weather was not on our side. Before leaving Durban though I got to go to a lion park and drive around some lions. They are huge!!! Durban was a great adventure, but Cape Town seems like it will be even better!